Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 21, 1992 TAG: 9203210304
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Work on the production began several years ago. The whirlwind of recent political upheaval threatened to make this story of CIA vs. KGB obsolete before it ever reached the screen. Perhaps writer/director Nicholas Meyer was forced to update and reupdate the script to keep up with current events. Whatever the reason, this screwy plot never makes any sense.
The main ingredients are semi-retired CIA spy Sam Boyd (Gene Hackman), Soviet spy Peter Grushenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov) and a briefcase filled with $2 million in marked bills. It seems that those whacky guys in the CIA want to trade Grushenko, who's cooling his heels in a North Dakota prison, for a U-2 pilot the Russians have held for several years.
The switch is to be made in Berlin. (Why Berlin? Well, because that's where they used to do this kind of thing in spy movies.) But just before the deal is done, Boyd recognizes the alleged U-2 pilot as a Texas A&M professor who has recently been kidnapped. He's also the same guy Boyd saw in Dulles airport buying a ticket for a Russian flight.
(Trust me, it makes even less sense on the screen than it does here.)
Most of the film, then, is an international buddy picture. The two unlikely allies learn to trust each other as they traipse across Europe with the various intelligence agencies hot on their trail. It's a time-honored plot that writers Eric Ambler and John LeCarre have used with considerable success. Meyer bungles it.
Overall, Hackman and Baryshnikov are better than the material deserves. They're appealing leads who seem to be friendly and comfortable with each other. The production values are barely acceptable. The film has a coarse, grainy look that would be appropriate to a more realistic story.
Meyer apparently meant to make something lighter, with comic overtones and a Hitchcockian ending at the Eiffel Tower. But history pulled the rug out from under him and he wound up with a silly mess.
`Company Business': *1/2
An MGM release playing at the Salem Valley 8. Rated PG-13 for strong language, some violence, brief nudity. 96 min.
by CNB